Thousands reshuffled in Harris County voter redistricting

West, north precincts would lose residents

Published 5:30 am, Monday, July 11, 2011

Tens of thousands of Harris County residents would be represented by a different commissioner under a draft redistricting map Commissioners Court is expected to accept today.

The proposal would bring significant changes to several precinct boundaries, seeking to make the populations in the four commissioners' precincts roughly equal, as required by law, and based on the 2010 Census. The draft will be the subject of several public hearings in the coming weeks.

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The fifth member of Commissioners Court, County Judge Ed Emmett, is elected countywide.

"It is a substantial shift of square miles, the most substantial I've seen, and this is the third time I've been involved in redistricting," Radack said.

'Very disappointing'

Richard Murray, a University of Houston political science professor and redistricting consultant, said the proposed changes would be the most sweeping the county had seen since the 1980 Census, after which Precinct 1 was redrawn as a black opportunity district. Lee has held the seat ever since.

Radack's Precinct 3 would remain the largest, with 1.04 million residents, down from 1.15 million; Lee's Precinct 1 also would be home to 1.04 million people, up from about 940,000.

Eversole's Precinct 4 would shrink to 1.02 million from 1.12 million. Morman's Precinct 2 would remain the smallest, rising from about 883,000 to 991,395 under the proposed map.

The largest territory swap under the proposal would happen in northeast Harris County, where Morman would pick up the Atascocita area and land around Lake Houston from Eversole.

"It's a very disappointing situation for me, because I've spent 20 years and a lot of taxpayers' money in Crosby and Huffman," Eversole said, listing a road repair facility, athletic complex, park and two community centers he would leave behind. "But it's not my territory - it's the taxpayers' territory."

"We leave it to Commissioner Morman," Eversole continued. "I know he'll be quite capable to take it from where we've got it and continue forward."

The move would provide Morman, a Republican, with a new bloc of reliably conservative voters. He ousted Democrat Sylvia Garcia last fall.

"We're still a majority Hispanic precinct, just like we were in 2000, the last time the lines were redrawn," Morman said. "No matter what, we'll have to work hard and do a good job in order to have a chance at re-election."

Change near Bush

That change would bolster the black population in Lee's precinct and would give him more miles of road outside the city of Houston, thus providing him a greater share of infrastructure cash under the county's funding formula, Murray said.

Lee declined comment, saying it was too early in the redistricting process to discuss details.

Radack would swap small but densely populated pockets to Lee in Alief and to Eversole in west Harris County. Radack would lose one of the county's newest clinics but few other facilities.